FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1205

There is so much
Good going on in this world
We have only to notice
Notice is letting in
Life seeing another being
Life hearing another heart
Notice what you’d like to let in

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1204

Bringing capacity and need together seems to be a key to a new economy. We have the ingenuity, we have the people, what we think we lack is the money to bring the people to the need. Yet ingenuity can do the same work as the money. Without the downside of the moaning over its absence!

It is not money we need. What we need is food for today, a roof over our heads, clothing for our backs, and a means of locomotion. We have become so accustomed to using money to buy these things, we have forgotten there are other peaceful, respectful ways to get them.

So maybe we need to put out a call for Job Creation Brigades!

What might we invent? What needs are there that we might meet? Those without a job have a need. Those with a need have resources of varying kinds. Each person is a source of needs…and of resources. What we need is to get to work thinking up ways to bring people together. Money is a poor substitute for that.

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1203

Skies, washing and watering: Mother Nature seems to be doing that a lot more these days. Have we brought some of the excess upon ourselves? Is earth trying to wash away our dirt? The lady has had slop buckets emptied on her; she wants nothing so much as to shower and shampoo.

If we work to clean up our mess, will the earth settle into an equilibrium, become again friendly?

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1202

When we see each other
as divine gifts, brilliant
then we too become brilliant
we move out of our
dull bored existence into
engaged shimmering

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1201

The horses next door
Watching me in expectant silence
Have me asking
Might they be
A superior intelligence to ours
Gently eating the grass
From my hand
Allowing me to pet their soft noses
Watching me as I pick up sticks,
Mow my grass, do my work
Pondering the trivial things
That hold my attention
Communicating with me
Some eternal truths
Or profound wisdom
In a language
Yet too elevated
For our species to comprehend?

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1200

All life asks of us
is to bring our good heads
& good hearts

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1199

Weeding another’s garden
A task I now own
I’d hoped but not so easily done
More work than I thought
Why’d they give me this job?
I have other things to do
The weeds among the flowers
The vegetables need picking
Where to start? Where to start?
I see a lone flower, what’s that wet
On my cheek?
I pull out weeds and and a flower too
I grow angry at the weeds—no, at you
I sit here in the midst of all this and
Realize I have been sitting here for
Minutes? Hours? Years of memory
Have taken over
Probate is weeding a garden

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1198

Friend, the rain
Friend, the drizzle
Friend, the blanket of grey
Watering the trees for
Their winter’s long nap
Watering our roots
Grey is our world today
A backdrop for
The colors of spring
The growth of summer
But now the trees rest
And we, we work
Work, though we wish to nap
But primarily we wish
To engage our world
Engage the rain
Engage the all

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1197

Drop
all the nonsense
time now
to live

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1196

Our society is in crisis and here we are pulling apart—as if there were only one direction to go from here. The fact is our society is large enough to hold many people, many ideas, many directions. We need to find a way—make a way—to weave.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1195

Mended with its own thread
It’s all we have, we have no other
Conversation threads us together
Some are beads on a string
Some woven sturdy as canvas
Flaming red
Boring grey
Dour brown
Sad blue
Lively green
All of our colors
One fabric
All sewn together
With our own thread
We can only mend ourselves
With ourselves

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1194

To a butterfly
you must not lie
she will carry your words
far and wide
telling the flowers
and the bees
if it is a lie
they will feel strangled
they might wilt and die
if it is your deepest truth
they are freed
to flower and buzz
To a butterfly
we must all be real

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1193

Left in the dark. Watched the earth: as she turned to face the sun; as she turned the colors of her northern woods to the colors of her southern fruits: orange and lemon and passion fruit.

Late afternoon. Now the earth turns her back to the sun and looks toward where the moon and the velvet and the lesser lights will soon be, and she looks forward to dreamtime.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1192

How smart are we!
A mobile over a baby’s head
showing—tactilely—how the world works
everything is connected
everything is moving
always
when something is touched
everything is changed
everything is one
everything is brightly colored
everything is fun!

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1191

Before you write your Will
Write a poem
To each person in it
Your poem will open to you
Story and heart,
Family and hearth,
The generations

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1190

I see more when I look away from my computer screen and out the window. I see leaves and grass and pond; nature and green and blue. A leaf is waving Hi to me, and the pond water is wrinkling the corner of its eye to me. Friend, a beautiful fall day and here you are in the many-tinted world outside my window. Look up, look out, wink to me.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1189

Leave the tear upon your cheek awhile
It is your baptism, a washing clean
Or salt to nourish our community

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1188

I’m turning red! I’m turning orange!
Fire now I have, the brightness of my life
Is now revealed, and in the wind
I will dance! Dance with me!
Shouted the leaf, and the whole tree
Came alive with color!
Soon enough we will fall away, rot away,
Become fertilizer and elements for
The whole earth, and for now:
We dance! We share our true colors!
That all the world might be happy
And sad at once, and know wisdom:
So with leaves, so with elders

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1187

Elder, at the pinnacle of adult
knowing, you are called to jump into
these wider openings you now can see
so to grow us by community

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1186

Violence seeks to make some other less than whole. Seek wholeness.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1185

Humans like you & I
have a need to reflect
to hear the voice of another
to discover in another’s
pains & quandaries
the source of
our
strength to go on
Neither given nor received
Simply present in being
with

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1184

Many we are, one dance

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1183

The only places work gets created are between and among people. Gather some people and you can create work—even paying jobs. Stay home alone or look in the old places…and you will never find the new thing that was waiting to be created…waiting on you.

Please pass it on.

© c 2011, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com